You Can't Always Get What You Want, but if You Try, Sometimes, You Get What You Need - Episode 60

Awareness That Heals, Episode 60.

And in these situations, our intention to heal is going to need to turn inward. We're going to need to move toward inner acceptance, inner tolerance, and inner discrimination.

The Awareness That Heals podcast helps its listeners learn to develop the capacity to have a more healing response to emotions and situations rather than becoming stuck. Your host, Robert J. Strock, has practiced psychotherapy for more than 45 years. He wrote the book, Awareness That Heals: Bringing Heart and Wisdom to Life's Challenges, to help develop self-caring and the capacity to respond in an effective way to life's challenges, especially at times when we are most prone to be critical or to withdraw. Together, we will explore how to become aware of our challenging feelings and at the same time, find alternative ways to live a more fulfilling and inspiring life.

Thanks again for joining us at Awareness That Heals, where we do our damnedest to focus on bringing heart and wisdom to our life's challenges. We repeatedly start again with being aware of what is most difficult for us. So we know that we aren't suppressing a very dear part of ourselves, and we see that these difficulties are universal for all of us, whether we recognize them or not. And we move from there, or do our best to see how to move from there, to how we can care for ourselves. At these crucial times. And this sets up the ideal conditions for us to be fulfilled in our individual lives and to contribute to the world by finding and living from our best selves. I want to emphasize that if we suppress our most difficult feelings or act them out. We are in a certain kind of compulsive repeating of history, of really reacting from what might be called our lower nature. And it's a source of alienation, of warfare, of divorce, of isolation. And when we recognize that we need to dignify our challenging emotions and see that as only a part of us that we need to treasure and care for, and combine it with an intention to heal, that, that's the way that we can set up the conditions for peace internally, for those we love, and for the world. Today we're going to continue to deeply delve into what I would consider to be the key consummation practice that has helped literally thousands of people directly to make a simple link between the most challenging feelings and situations we face each day and how to move toward healing and well-being. And this really is a grounded, inspirational way to live. And I'm not saying that to aggrandize myself, because this really has nothing to do with me other than the fact that I'm speaking right now. It has to do with the sensibility of realizing that if we suppress or act out our grounded challenges, that it really is the source of a more hellish life. And when we learn to integrate it as a part of our life that we want to care for and care beyond, it's a source of a heavenly life. It always starts with authentically facing what is difficult and naturally leads us to inquire, how do you, how do I best take care of yourself, myself? And as I've shared in the last number of episodes, I have such a deep wish, and I'm going to focus more on the future than the past, that this is something that is included, starting in kindergarten, going through PhD, that at any level, and frankly beyond PhD, all the way till we die, that if we don't really learn how to deal with our— what's been called our shadow sides, or our difficulties, or our challenges— that we really are contributing to the world's suffering that we so easily see today. And so there really is a prayer as you're listening to these episodes that you're looking internally and seeing where are my challenges, where are my difficulties, and how can I care for them, and how can I spread this to other people. To live a more fulfilling life. So I'd like to start off by introducing Dave, co-president of Global Bridge Foundation, and maybe even slightly more importantly, my dearest friend for the last 50 years.

Thank you for that. As always, I appreciate being here. I find this particular set of episodes to be inspiring, challenging, all of the kinds of things that go into, as you said, the culminating practice that includes what came before.

Thank you, Dave. So I'd like to start off with an example of a friend of mine, and it reveals that many times our focus needs to be on being accountable for ourselves. And this especially applies to when we're upset about something. Things aren't going the way we want them to go, and this leads to us commonly reacting angrily or withdrawing in some form. This is certainly the most common way it's happened in today's world. And frankly, in my best guess, throughout history. So this was a very, very painful example of something with one of my dearest friends. And I wanted him to talk about something that was bothering me, where he had asked me to do something that was compromising my integrity. He asked that I continue to act as a trustee for his trust while being dishonest with his wife. And I had, I had told him that I needed to change either the trust, or I needed him to be more honest with her. And after a few years, and I mean years, painful years in this area, of having 20, 30, 40 conversations in hopes that I could still serve that function. He still didn't change the will or the trust, and his attention just wasn't there. And I felt like complaining and striking out, getting pissed off, or just going home and just tearing things up. And it was a challenge for me to not just act out. So I remembered with great ambivalence in a certain moment that I need to shift my anger and my complaining. I can't believe that he's doing this. And pivot from those challenging feelings of anger and intolerance to being aware of my own intention to heal. And I needed to be accountable for my own anger and set a healthy boundary with a decent vibe. So this required months of contemplation, even though I was very familiar with the process. My friendship with him was in my top 5 friends of the world. And in one way was the dearest friendship of being able to connect me with teachers and quality people throughout the world. So I knew I was threatened with a very deep loss if things didn't go well. So I basically told him that if he didn't make this change, that I was going to rip up the trust and I wasn't going to represent him anymore. And I did it with a deep, prayerful vibe, asking that he really understand that I felt like I was betraying myself because I knew his wife and I knew she was sincere and he wanted to leave all the money to his son that was not from his current wife. Now, this was, this was devastating. And I actually felt like I did it the very best I could over a whole weekend where I was spending time with him. And the end result was— now, I, a little other story to go in. My son came over, and I had worked on this letter. And actually, Dave, as he does frequently, did about 30 revisions of the letter with me, where I decided that it was better to give him a chance to be— not to be immediately reactive, and put it in a context of how much I loved him, how much I revered him, how much I was grateful for all the people that he had introduced me to, how irreplaceable he was in that regard for so many things, how much fun we had had. And then I got in the middle end of the letter to saying this is what I needed from him, and that I hope he understood that I would do anything that didn't compromise my integrity. And he was very angry with me. He said, well, you know my wife is an alcoholic. And I said, no, I don't know that. I know that you believe that, but I believe he's been very dedicated to your son and actually been quite a hero. So we went through a number of things like that where he had discounted her and justified why he had put her in a place of having to sell the house if he were to die before her. Well, the end result was my friendship— well, actually, let me go back to the story. So my, my son came and I said, I want you to read this letter. And this was the final letter that Dave and I had gone over 30 times. And his response was, I've never heard you kiss someone's ass so many times, you know, either in a letter or in person. And I sent the letter. That was kind of the final confirmation that I had succeeded in giving a good vibe. And it ended our relationship. He was so offended by the difference in perceptions that it, it literally ended my relationship and cut off an artery of something that was very dear and important to me. And I realized that was why it took me a few years, because I realized that there was a great danger that this was going to happen. Now, all of us are going to have situations that are going to simulate that. Hopefully not with the same outcome. I've had many situations, most situations— this is one of the very few in my life where it ended so drastically in a way that really created even more suffering for me. But I did feel like to be true to myself, I had to set this boundary. And certainly, I practiced what I preached in terms of contemplating it for, maybe you could even say, a neurotically long period of time. But I would say very carefully because the stakes were so high. So I think, as always, I'm asking you, as I share this very personal story, for you to apply this to where you, you may need to be setting a certain boundary, or you may be needing to have a certain communication, or you may have certain difficult feelings where I, I felt like I was like prostituting myself, that I was selling out my soul for what he had been giving me for decades. And you don't have to have the example be the same severity. Obviously, I have hundreds of examples in much more minor form. But look for situations where if you were true to your— truer to yourself, you would tell your husband or your wife, you know what, I don't really like it when I start talking to you and you're obviously thinking about work. Or, I don't like it when we're having sex and you do what I've asked you not to do so many times. Or you're with your boss and you're feeling like you can't stand the way he talks to you, but you don't want to get fired and you've got to figure out what's the best way to deal with it. The stakes are very high. How do we best take care of ourselves? So if we're in a work situation, if you're in a work situation, if that's your example, and you hate the way your boss is talking to you, but you'll be homeless if you get fired, then obviously you need to be resourceful and look for other job opportunities before you take that risk. So every situation is utterly unique. But to develop this practice where you're starting with the feelings that are difficult and you're looking at what your needs were. In this case, my need was to be true to myself. My need was to be sincere. My need was to be honest. My need was also to be accepted, which in this case I had to turn it inward, which was to accept the consequences of not being accepted and to accept myself that I did everything I possibly could, which is a very, very important element that all of us need to go through. Now, this reminds me of a time that was 35 years ago where I did a workshop at Santa Monica College, and it was a really popular workshop, and it was called Bridging Anger and Closeness. It was a standing-only crowd, and I started with a very similar kind of thing that we're talking about today, where the first step was being aware of your challenging feelings. And then there was the emphasis on, okay, right in the middle of these challenging feelings, or afterwards, as soon as possible, finding your intention to heal. Well, and up to this stage, everyone was going, oh wow, that's really cool. And I had a list I don't remember how many feelings and needs I had at that time. But I had a list on the, on the, you know, on paper on that everyone could see. And people were thrilled. They were like, well, that's really cool. Now I can see my feelings. And I can see what I, what I really needed. And then the third part was as lovingly as possible, with good timing. No. And really being able to ask the question. And, and then the, the fourth step was the timing, really. And it was, when's the best time to actually express the need? And everybody was really— I could tell it was like a joyous place where I think, I think I would have been cheered up to that point. And then I asked the question, and by the way, about 90% of the people in the room were housewives and about 10% were husbands. It was largely a married crowd. What do you do when you fulfill all these steps and you communicate in a way that's exactly what you need and your partner says or acts like, I'm not interested. I, I don't want to do that. What do you do? And suddenly the whole room sunk. The mood of complete depression filled the room because people had no idea what to do. Because they wanted what they wanted. They liked being able to express the needs. They liked being able to be aware of the feelings. They liked doing it in a loving way. But they didn't like the idea that they might do everything perfectly but still be out of control. In a very, very important area of their life. And then I spoke to the fact that, well, at that point, it seems like you have 3 choices. You either set a boundary within the context of your relationship, and maybe you're not going to— maybe it's setting a boundary for yourself. You're not going to look to them for that part of your needs. Or you're setting a boundary where you're not going to participate in certain things because you need to take care of yourself. And so the relationship is still good enough, but a very core need isn't there. So you're setting internal or external boundaries. The other two options are that you decide, you know what, this is serious enough that I actually need to leave the relationship, or it's actually not that serious where I don't need to set any boundaries. I can accept it pretty easily. It's not that big of a need. And it's our responsibility— and again, the mood stayed very depressed— it's our responsibility to figure out which of the three it was. So we need to ask ourselves the question, Which of the three is it for you? And I asked for people to raise their hands. And pretty much universally got, I don't know. I don't know how to move to the next step. I'm lost. I feel out of control. I feel like it's really justified because my partner doesn't communicate, or he's treating me with disrespect, or she's treating me with disrespect. Or whatever it was. And this highlights the difficulty of even when we do things perfectly, or as close to perfectly as we're capable of, we still need to find a way of how do we best take care of ourselves. Because guess what? The world or our partners are not going to cooperate with us reliably. You know, as happened in the prior example, which is what made me think of this one, sometimes we're going to get exactly the answer we most dreaded. And how can we, out of our own maturity, find the right place of those three options? This is a major evolutionary step And I think it makes it clear how this practice is not a formula for guaranteed global success. It is optimizing how we can be our best selves, but it's also coming to a co-realization that we may be facing a loss or a death of a relationship, or a loss of, of a capacity to share. And so we are gonna then need to focus on accepting our own difficult emotions that come with a loss, even if it's one that only requires setting boundaries. It still can be a heartbreak. Now, how do we cope with a heartbreak and still love. Well, guess what? That's when it came down to— now, not in this workshop, but for this podcast— that in relationships, if you listed your top 10 needs, most of us at best get 7 out of 10. And if we get 7 out of 10, and my God, if we got 8 out of 10, And a mature version of ourselves, in my view, would be to accept that there are limitations. Every relationship I've been in has at least 1 or 2 or 3 limitations that I've loved the most. And so that maturity, not having that maturity, is why the divorce rate is so high. And even worse, that when you're divorced, you hate the other person because you hold them responsible for the 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 key areas. Now, of course, in many relationships, it might be 8 areas, in which case, you know, the problem was the selection, not so much how you could have maneuvered once you were in it. Because a lot of people don't even ask the question. Now, this is a bit of a diversion, but it's an important diversion. That before you enter into a relationship, you want to identify your 10 most important needs and ask yourself, how many of these needs are likely to be compatible with this person? And have I started to check it out, or am I just going on a romantic attraction, a sexual attraction, a power attraction, a socioeconomic attraction? You know, the classic societal formula, according to one of my earlier spiritual teachers, were that relationships are really socioeconomic relationships. You know, that basically, you know, the man is— the man in classic over-stereotypical fashion is going to be attracted to the woman because he's attracted to her, and the woman's going to be attracted to the man because he's going to bring in a source of wealth. Now, in today's world, That's very outdated, but as an extreme, but it's still a significant half-truth. And if it's more than a half-truth, boy, are we in trouble. Because the reason why we're entering into love doesn't have to do with our deepest needs, our most essential needs, taking care of our heart, taking care of the other person's heart. That might not even be on the screen and what we've identified. So again, for those of you that are, are maybe even listening to this for the first time, going to awarenessthatheals.org and looking at the introspective guides that are free download, being able to see the 75 essential needs, you can identify which of these are most important to me. And isn't it obvious that that's a crucial element of picking your love partner? Either for life or for a while, no matter what it is, or even a girlfriend or a boyfriend. So returning to the workshop, we, we see that even practicing this and implementing it is not going to liberate us reliably from our challenging feelings. And that means we just have another cycle to go through. And we get to start to— and notice I say we get to rather than we should or we have to— we get to start with the awareness of our challenging feelings and having a reverence for them, and then looking for our intention to heal. And in these situations, our intention to heal is going to need to turn inward. We're going to need to move toward inner acceptance, inner tolerance, and inner discrimination as to whether or not this is such a big deal that it's all or nothing, or whether we need to actually say, you know what, you can't always get what you want, that, that, that, that's part of it. Even if it's a need, you can't always get what you need either. But if you try sometimes, Maybe you'll get 7 out of 10. Maybe you'll get 8 out of 10. And that's a very crucial part of maturity.

Going to the workshop, as you described it, it was people that were dealing with anger. So they were already at a level of agitation, or let's say several steps removed from maybe some other core feelings underneath that were being expressed to each other and in their own way creating their own damage. But what I'm hearing you say now is this applies even if we're at our best, but we're different. And if we're at our best and we're different, we're still at best maybe 7 or 8 out of 10.

Exactly. And thank you for reminding me. Because part of that workshop and part of the presentation wasn't leaving people just being angry or intolerant or impatient. It was also acknowledging the importance of being able to see the vulnerable feelings underneath the anger or the intolerance. So the people were grieving, they were frightened of bringing this up, they were They were feeling a loss. They were feeling helpless. And that was part of it. And they liked that part of the workshop too. That was fine. It was only when asked to be accountable when you didn't have control of what you want in the world. And it really shows so much the desire that we have for control of our world. And that is in opposition to our needs. And so being able to see that control is a desire, not a need, and that for almost all of us, maybe even all of us, we have a part inside of us that wants control. And that's a dangerous place. And that unquestionably has been the source of many alienating divorces and many wars. So I hope that, unlike the workshop, I hope that you who have listened to many of the podcasts or are developed in other ways prior to listening to the podcast, that you're left with recognizing, yeah, this is really truly a challenge. I'm not going to get what I want. Or even what I need, probably with anybody, probably with no religion, probably with no spirituality, that I'm going to be left with many of my needs being met if I go for it. But there's going to be a couple, 1 or 2 or 3, in almost any path, our political party, our nation. And so left with, yes, it's natural that you're going to suffer. With that? And how do you care for your suffering? How can you, as I said earlier, discriminate between do I need to leave altogether, can I more easily accept, or do I need to set internal or external boundaries? That, that's something that's inspirational, because when you get down to that level and you really engage it, then you're really grounding yourself in a type of maturity where you're ready to live in this world and be a lover of this world. And when you don't get what you need, it's not going to have a predictable negative response. It's going to have almost likely, almost inevitably, a negative feeling that you're going to have to work through. Through finding the intention to heal. But then you're going to know when you've really been able to face that, that your dignity, your empathy— because you also hopefully will realize, guess what, you're probably not given 10 out of 10 either to anybody or to any party or to any country, that there's no perfect people on this planet. Which is a big part of the realization. And hopefully we all will be humbled to be aware that we're unaware, to be aware that we're not in control, and to be aware that we're not going to get all of what we need, and we still need to go for being the best selves we can possibly be. Thanks so much.

Thanks for listening to Awareness That Heals. Please click subscribe so you won't miss an episode. If you love the podcast, the best way to help spread the word is to rate and review the show. This helps other listeners like you find this podcast. We're deeply grateful you're here and that we have found each other. We encourage you to download our introspective guides at awarenessthatheals.org. They will be helpful to you while listening to our podcast.